


Take Two

by aphreal



Series: Take Two [1]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, do over AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphreal/pseuds/aphreal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After killing the archdemon, Alexia Cousland wakes up back in Highever, remembering everything. Can she take advantage of a second chance to change things for the better?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Two

As the archdemon’s defiant scream rose above the clash of combat between lesser combatants, Alexia paused, finding a moment of clarity in the chaos of battle. 

She glanced over at Morrigan, seeking to reassure herself. For all of their differences, she trusted the witch, believed in her sincerity. Alexia had faith that the ritual would work, assuming Morrigan hadn’t been misled herself. 

Putting that thought aside, Alexia spared a longer look for Alistair. He wouldn’t meet her eyes, full of confused resentment and senseless guilt. She couldn’t be distracted by that right now. She’d made sure they were both going to live past today, so there would be time later to convince him to forgive her for her methods. He’d said he still loved her, and that was all that mattered. 

Bracing herself, Alexia cleared everything from her mind but the task in front of her. She charged the archdemon, avoiding its attacks and slashing at it whenever she could. Finally, she saw her opening. Alexia’s greatsword plunged cleanly through the massive skull. 

There was a burst of light and a surge of deafening energy. Then the world went black. 

 

Alexia came to consciousness slowly, feeling far better than she thought she had any right to. She couldn’t feel any lingering signs of injury, and none of her muscles were even especially sore. She stretched languidly, enjoying the absence of pain and silently blessing Wynne as a worker of miracles. 

Alexia opened her eyes, freezing abruptly as she took in her unexpectedly familiar surroundings. Once she’d realized she was in a bed, she had expected to find herself in a guest quarters in the palace – maybe even the royal suite if she was lucky. An infirmary had been a distant possibility, although she didn’t feel sufficiently injured for that to be likely. She had never considered that she might be in her old room in Highever. 

Why would anyone have brought her here? Had her convalescence been long enough she’d needed to be somewhere less hectic than the rebuilding capital? She didn’t feel like she had been out for that long. Had she been wrong about Alistair relenting? Maker, she hoped he hadn’t sent her away while she was unconscious to prevent her talking him out of it. He couldn’t possibly still be that angry. Could he? 

She wasn’t going to get any answers lying in bed. Determined to find out what was going on – and fix it if necessary – Alexia threw back her covers and stood up. She opened the familiar wardrobe and dressed in eerily familiar clothes, wondering idly how all of her things had managed to survive the attack by Howe’s men almost entirely unscathed. 

The first person she encountered in the hallway was a serving maid. The woman had clearly been heading towards her room and looked relieved to see her up and moving. “Lady Alexia.” The maid bobbed a quick curtsey. “I was just coming to see that you were ready for the Grey Warden’s visit.” 

“Alistair’s here?” Alexia glanced around eagerly, as if he would materialize. 

The other woman’s forehead creased with confusion. “No, my lady. The Warden-Commander, Duncan. Your mother wants you to help her get everything prepared since your father and brother are busy readying the troops for Ostagar.” 

Alexia reeled, trying to make sense of the woman’s words, to make them mean anything other than what she thought she had heard. Failing dismally, she stammered something incoherent and darted back into her bedroom, closing the door and leaning her forehead against the cool wood. 

Duncan. Mother. Father. They were all dead, and Highever had been ruined by Howe’s attack and occupation. Nothing made any sense. She focused on her breathing for a few minutes, trying to calm her racing heart and slow her whirling thoughts. 

“A demon,” Alexia whispered to herself. This had to be another dream, like the one she had been snared into by the sloth demon in the Circle Tower. Instead of a sloth demon offering her peaceful rest, this must be a desire demon tempting her with what she wanted most: the return of her loved ones. 

Suddenly wary, Alexia raised her head and looked around slowly, eyeing everything with suspicion. If this was the Fade, she couldn’t trust anything to be as harmless as it appeared, no matter how familiar it seemed. Straightening her spine and squaring her shoulders, Alexia prepared to stride back to the hallway and confront the apparent maid again. Whatever her actual role here, if she was a denizen of the Fade, Alexia could press her for answers. Her hands clenched open and closed, and she wished fervently for the reassuring weight of her greatsword. 

Just as she was about to open the door, Alexia paused. It didn’t make sense. If this was the work of a desire demon, it was missing something. Alistair. The maid shouldn’t have denied knowledge of him. Any temptation with a hope of snaring her in complacent domesticity would fail utterly without him, and a demon strong enough to create a construct this detailed would surely have known that. What options did that leave? 

And what had the maid said about Ostagar? That sounded less like an idealized dream and more like reliving a section of the past she would prefer to avoid thinking about. It didn’t make any sense. 

Maybe the best thing to do, for now, would be to play along and try to collect more information. The pieces would have to start coming together soon. 

 

As the morning wore on, Alexia became progressively more convinced that she was reliving the day of Duncan’s visit to Highever, the last day before her life had changed forever. She’d bit her tongue until it bled trying to be civil to Rendon Howe, and it had taken every bit of willpower she had not to throw her arms around her father and weep on his shoulder at the shock of seeing him alive. 

By the time Rory came to enlist her help in getting Kazaril out of the pantry, Alexia had stopped questioning how this could be real and begun asking herself what she should do if it was. The obvious first answer was preventing Howe’s treachery and stopping the massacre. 

But how? She couldn’t accuse him outright. Rendon was one of her father’s closest allies, and they had been trusted friends for years. Without proof, no one would believe her wild stories about jealous ambition and impending betrayal. Alexia herself wouldn’t have taken it seriously if she hadn’t spent the past several months living through the consequences. 

Evidence was the key. She would have to wait until the attack started and it was unmistakably clear what Howe intended. The challenge would be blunting the force of that attack enough to rein in the devastation. She would need to get the remaining guards – those few not leaving for Ostagar with Fergus – on alert without telling them exactly what to expect. It had to be a generalized warning, something that would get their attention but not require too many details. 

And it couldn’t come from her. The captain of the guard wouldn’t take it seriously if the teyrn’s daughter came to him with vague stories about an unspecified threat. He would insist on knowing where her information had come from and would probably dismiss her concerns entirely when she couldn’t provide specific answers. The alert had to come from someone else, someone the guards would listen to and not question. 

“Rory, I need you to do me a favor. This is going to sound kind of crazy, but hear me out…” 

 

It worked. Standing over the prone body of the man that a part of her brain insisted had killed her father, Alexia struggled to contain her disbelief. Any lingering doubts that she was simply dreaming or hallucinating this alternate future had fled her mind as soon as she had drawn her sword. 

Alexia’s body had moved with a precision and skill beyond anything she had developed in her years of training at Highever. She had responded with the sort of reflexes that only come from fighting for your life on a daily basis over a long period of time. Alexia’s muscles agreed with her memories: she had spent the past year as a Grey Warden facing threats all over the kingdom. It was only reality that didn’t seem to match up with that. 

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Howe’s men had been stopped. Rory had done everything he’d promised, getting the guard patrols adjusted and the men on alert for danger. Alexia herself had waited to ambush the men coming into the wing of the manor where her family slept. Oriana and Oren had been awakened by the sounds of their would-be killers dying painfully at Alexia’s hands. Her mother and father were both unharmed, if thoroughly shaken and outraged. 

Alexia had made sure that the leaders of the attacking force were taken alive. She had no doubt that they would turn on Howe, expose his role in this plot in exchange for leniency. And Bryce Cousland hadn’t kept his place among the most powerful nobles in Ferelden without the skills to follow up on that information. If Alexia knew her father, he would act decisively. It would only be a matter of weeks before evidence of Howe’s treachery was laid before the throne and he was stripped of his title and lands. The investigation might even manage to uncover Loghain’s complicity in Howe’s mad schemes and save the kingdom from his disastrous influence as well. 

Of course, all of that required having a somewhat stable ruler actually on the throne. Which was where Alexia’s next task came in. 

As soon as possible after the manor began to calm down from the midnight excitement, Alexia arranged to speak with Duncan. She opted not to waste any time with logic or explanation. Instead, she convinced him to accept her insane story by reciting a litany of things she would have no other way of knowing: details of the Joining ritual, the reason a Grey Warden was needed to kill an archdemon, the presence of Maric’s illegitimate son in the Warden ranks, things about Duncan’s own past that Alistair had told her as he grieved for his mentor. 

Eventually, Duncan had no choice but to take her seriously. Even if he didn’t believe her explanation for how she had come by the knowledge, there was no doubt that Alexia knew far more than she should, and he couldn’t risk ignoring her warnings about Loghain and what was coming at Ostagar. 

Having convinced him and done everything she could to stop the Grey Wardens from being massacred, Alexia just had one more thing left to do. She thought this one might be the hardest yet. 

 

“Mother, father, I have something I need to tell you. I know you probably won’t understand, but this is something I have to do. I’ve spoken with Duncan, and he’ll be leaving in the morning. I’m going with him. 

“I’ve volunteered to join the Grey Wardens. Please don’t try to talk me out of this. I have to go. I know things that the Wardens need in order to stop the Blight and keep Ferelden safe. It’s vital to the kingdom that I go with Duncan and help him.” 

_Also,_ she thought to herself, _there’s someone waiting to meet me at Ostagar. He just doesn’t know it yet._


End file.
